Sleep is required to consolidate odor memory and remodel olfactory synapses.

Animals with complex nervous systems demand sleep for memory consolidation and synaptic remodeling. Here, we show that, although the Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system has a limited number of neurons, sleep is necessary for both processes. In addition, it is unclear if, in any system, sleep collaborates with experience to alter synapses between specific neurons and whether this ultimately affects behavior. C. elegans neurons have defined connections and well-described contributions to behavior. We show that spaced odor-training and post-training sleep induce long-term memory. Memory consolidation, but not acquisition, requires a pair of interneurons, the AIYs, which play a role in odor-seeking behavior. In worms that consolidate memory, both sleep and odor conditioning are required to diminish inhibitory synaptic connections between the AWC chemosensory neurons and the AIYs. Thus, we demonstrate in a living organism that sleep is required for events immediately after training that drive memory consolidation and alter synaptic structures.

Super-enhancer acquisition drives oncogene expression in triple negative breast cancer.

Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is a heterogeneous disease lacking known molecular drivers and effective targeted therapies. Cytotoxic chemotherapy remains the mainstay of treatment for TNBCs, which have significantly poorer survival rates compared to other breast cancer subtypes. In addition to changes within the coding genome, aberrant enhancer activity is a well-established contributor to tumorigenesis. Here we use H3K27Ac chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing (ChIP-Seq) to map the active cis-regulatory landscape in TNBC. We identify distinct disease subtypes associated with specific enhancer activity, and over 2,500 unique superenhancers acquired by tumor cells but absent from normal breast tissue. To identify potential actionable disease drivers, we probed the dependency on genes that associate with tumor-specific enhancers by CRISPR screening. In this way we identify a number of tumor-specific dependencies, including a previously uncharacterized dependency on the TGFß pseudo-receptor BAMBI.

Expression of an expanded CGG-repeat RNA in a single pair of primary sensory neurons impairs olfactory adaptation in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Fragile X-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome (FXTAS) is a severe neurodegenerative disorder that affects carriers of premutation CGG-repeat expansion alleles of the fragile X mental retardation 1 (FMR1) gene; current evidence supports a causal role of the expanded CGG repeat within the FMR1 mRNA in the pathogenesis of FXTAS. Though the mRNA has been observed to induce cellular toxicity in FXTAS, the mechanisms are unclear. One common neurophysiological characteristic of FXTAS patients is their inability to properly attenuate their response to an auditory stimulus upon receipt of a small pre-stimulus. Therefore, to gain genetic and cell biological insight into FXTAS, we examined the effect of expanded CGG repeats on the plasticity of the olfactory response of the genetically tractable nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). While C. elegans is innately attracted to odors, this response can be downregulated if the odor is paired with starvation. We found that expressing expanded CGG repeats in olfactory neurons interfered with this plasticity without affecting either the innate odor-seeking response or the olfactory neuronal morphology. Interrogation of three RNA regulatory pathways indicated that the expanded CGG repeats act via the C. elegans microRNA (miRNA)-specific Argonaute ALG-2 to diminish olfactory plasticity. This observation suggests that the miRNA-Argonaute pathway may play a pathogenic role in subverting neuronal function in FXTAS.